Taxim - Monitoring

Taxim is a Dark Electro act from Essen, Germany. Founded in 1996 by Alex Ney, and becoming internationally known by releasing their first album in the United States in 2006, this three member outfit is known for their albums being predominantly instrumental, composing music with synths, bass, guitar and minimal vocals/samples. Their albums feature a mix of musical genres, containing songs that are fast and frantic (Cyberpunk) to more typical 4/4 Futurepop beats.

Taxim's new album, 'Monitoring,' will be released on Ionium Records on November 2, 2012 and is currently available for pre-sale orders. The album features 11 new songs and has a running time of under an hour. The album will be available in CD format and as a digital download. You can also listen to all 11 tracks in their entirety at the Bandcamp link provided below.

I had never heard of Taxim before this review and it was very refreshing to hear a band that definitely has it's own sound. I was extremely impressed with the sound quality of the mastering of this album, and while I am into music with a harder edge, I genuinely had fun listening to it. I found myself being anxious to hear the next song. I listened to the tracks from the Bandcamp website on tiny Mac PowerBook G4 speakers and I couldn't believe how crisp and clear the songs were.

While 'Monitoring' features songs that some would say sound like EBM or Futurepop, this album is pretty much summed up as a Dark Electro album because there are multiple genres contained within. If you have heard the single '2011' that was released earlier this year, the entire album lives up to the expectations of that single. Many of these songs are extremely catchy even though they do not have vocals, and most of them are club and work friendly, but could also be listened to as background music while you are studying without being too intense.

As promised by previous albums, 'Monitoring' is mainly instrumental with a few vocal samples in German. The track 'Ich bin nicht schuld' features lyrics sung by Alex himself. It reminded me of And One, as he sounds a lot like Steve Naghavi (to me anyway). However, I'm not too impressed with the opening track, which is featured in a video on their website. I feel it's the weakest song on the album. After hearing the rest of the 'Monitoring,' I was hoping to be blasted with a stronger song to catch my attention and rope me into listening. The opening track just doesn't do that for me.

For me, the album felt light-hearted at the beginning, with the Cyberpunk/Dark Electro genres being introduced as fast and bouncy songs. As it progresses further into the album, the songs slowly morph into what could be considered EBM or Futurepop, while still having a darker feel to them. The last song is slower in nature and is very different from the rest. It may seem a little out of place, but it really wraps up the album into a neat little package and brings you back down from the chaos of the album. While some may be concerned that 'Monitoring' will be disjointed, what with featuring so many genres of music, the songs actually do have a natural flow to them which makes sense to the ear.

I recommend this album for someone who is sick of the 'same old, same old.' 'Monitoring' will not disappoint you. Fans of EBM, Futurepop and Synthpop will definitely enjoy this album. Oct 22 2012